


The Postmortem Thoughts of a Wizard Snake Nazi

by OxfordOctopus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beauxbatons, Beauxbatons Student Harry Potter, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Horcruxes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, Obscurial Harry Potter, Obscurials (Harry Potter), POV Tom Riddle, Pre-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-06-27 06:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19785556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle should've really expected something like this to happen, but now after four damned years in an abused kid's head he's honestly considering his options.





	1. Chapter 1

Perhaps in hindsight, Tom Marvolo Riddle, sometimes known as “Voldemort”, should’ve seen red flags when he first killed a teenage girl with a fifty-someodd-foot long basilisk over her rejecting him romantically. It was easy to see now, of course, now that he occupied 1/8th of a kid’s brain, one which was ( _less_ ) inbred than his body had been by quite a few leagues. Sure, the Potters had some cousin-shagging going on, Tom knew that, boy-Potter’s father - if the kid had ever met him, anyway - probably knew that. Hell, even the hawkish, seventy-percent-neck creature that was the boy’s aunt probably knew that, not that it made her envy over bitch-Potter any weaker.

But nope, he hadn’t, and now he was firmly stuck in a dying - or maybe self-destructing? - kid’s body as a botched Horcrux because Lily “fuck you get bent” Potter had an unhealthy obsession with sacrificial soul magic and he had an itchy trigger finger when it came to the killing curse.

So karma - he was pretty sure this was karma, seeing as it would be hilariously unfortunate if this was just random chance - had seen it fit to make him live in a violently abused kid’s head - while feeling everything he did, lest he cease to exist - that mirrored his own childhood in the abstract but was worse if only because his guardians had the mind to beat the resistance out of the child before he could start murdering cherished neighborhood pets.

The boy was also turning into an Obscurial. Which was fucking _fascinating_ from a distance, but when your continued existence hinges on the stability of a child’s sense of self and soul it’s rather terrifying instead. See, most Obscurials appear later on in their childhood, it takes a fucking _while_ to develop that sort of animosity, years of self-rejection egged on by continued verbal and physical abuse that needs to be left to fester and rot. If Tom wasn’t both attached to the boy and also pretty sure the family of Muggles had the combined intelligence equal to the more _insane_ Lestrange, he might even think they were trying to beat a magical child-to-Obscurial record or something.

But, er, no. It was unlikely either they or the blood wards - both sets, one for the house, one for the kid’s soul-slash-ego, because seriously _fuck you Lily Potter_ \- knew what was going on and Tom himself only really knew because watching an Obscurial develop within the mental mindscape of a heavily abused child was both horrifying and rather hard to miss. It was like spellblight in appearance, marks and blemishes that grew on the surface of a _Protego_ due to the nature of the Dark magic that had been hurled at it.

By the pace of development, Tom gave his and his host’s existence another three months, up to six if the abuse stopped entirely and less than one if it got any worse, before it erupted. Magic was a bit weird like that, in large part because of how rejecting magic _works_ , or how it really doesn’t. Magic isn’t finite, not as far as he was aware, which meant it would continue to spill back into the boy even while he tried to force it out of him, or rather, instinctively remove it through willing it away. At some point in time, forcing it away becomes corrupted - something Tom was pretty sure happened during one of the more extreme moments of abuse - and instead of simply shunting the magic out, only to be refilled later, the magic is ‘converted’ into something that consumes the magic, which then takes over the rejection process and reacts to the boy’s wishes. Since the infestation of magic-consuming-magic - this is why people fail Arithmancy, by the way, infinity is bullshit - isn’t _considered_ magic - though it is, just not by the body or the soul-slash-ego - it continues to try to add magic back to the child, and therefore gives the growing blight an infinite food source.

Honestly, he would write a fucking book if he got out of this alive, though that was unlikely.

The boy was also _four years old_. What little Tom could remember from his research back when he had his own non-self-destructing body was a girl who’d erupted at the age of _eight_ and died almost immediately thereafter.

So, _problems_. Clearly.

But Tom had solutions, _sorta_. Kinda. Just none of them promised his existence, and two of them would probably kill both himself and the boy. The main reason why _any_ of this bullshit was happening - aside from decisions made by his former inbred, soul-torn self, the same person who was _proud_ of the anagram _Voldemort_ \- was because he didn’t really have a way to access the boy and, honestly, take him over. Taking over the boy for even a few hours would eradicate the infestation entirely, seeing as he was rather quite fond of magic, thanks, and would like it to continue to exist. But because, again, _fucking Lily goddamn Potter_ , he didn’t _have_ a way to surreptitiously possess the boy. If he had, he would’ve murdered the child’s caretakers and be in goddamn Latin America by now, but because nothing was _easy_ he was at an impasse.

One option was stupid, considering while Tom knew he could nudge the little almost-Obscurial in certain directions with barely-there mental compulsions he sure as shit was pretty sure the kid didn’t have access to quickcopper or diluted Veela blood. The other two options included sacrificing himself to momentarily reassert dominance, shunt most of the fundamental concepts of magic into the kid’s head, and then let himself get consumed by the accompanying spellwork, or waiting until the kid went Obscurial, try to hijack the resulting parasitic manifestation - in the hopes that it wasn’t _also_ protected by Lily Potter, but what with his luck around that woman it _probably fucking would be_ \- and then turn the magic on the blood wards, cannibalize them, and _then_ reassert dominance. One would kill him, the other was a low chance and a massive risk that, even if everything went well, would likely still leave his consciousness as a parasitic additive to a boy’s already pretty weighed-down soul.

But while Tom knew he had months, he didn’t really. Spending four years in an abused kid’s head, feeling every emotion, every confused betrayal and sharp crack of pain, was _really not fun_. It was humiliating, painful, and maybe worst of all incredibly traumatizing.

He knew, maybe better than anyone else, that he was a sociopath, or _had_ been a sociopath, one that edged into psychopathy due to flighty obsessions - see Myrtle Warren, that damned prophecy, and that _fucking defense teaching position_ \- and sometimes randomly due to bouts of rage. Apparently a _lot_ of that was due to being half hillbilly-inbred, because seriously the Gaunt family tree formed a gordian knot for more than two hundred years before his rather traumatic birth. He had liked to present himself as rational, cold, and for the most part he was, but apparently he was glaringly blind to himself, something that ripping apart his soul - or, also known as _your sense of self_ \- probably didn’t help. If it could be _at all_ avoided, he’d rather like to avoid having to spend the next couple of indeterminate months feeling every bit of abuse, every betrayal, every bit of _empathy_ \- because holy shit, fuck this kid’s brain - and other emotions he’d been introduced unwillingly to.

So, he either toughed it out or he gave in and tried his best to at _least_ ensure that boy wonder didn’t erupt and die. Oh, sure, the resulting breaking point would almost certainly happen when near the Dursleys, killing them all in one violent, gore-heavy moment of anger, but if Tom knew his Obscurials - and he really did, considering his situation - the kid would also probably explode like an overfilled balloon, just one full of blood and bones and viscera. Satisfactory in the moment, but unfortunately rather short-lived, in other words.

So that left the suicidal plan, not that it came as any surprise to Tom. He had a way in, which helped, seeing as even while magic was infinite and arcane on the best of days, it still had to charge and recharge. For a boy who had to consistently heal his body - though Tom was pretty sure he didn’t know it was his ‘freakishness’ that was doing it - that meant that the internal warding and protections his Merlin-damned mother put up had some rather large cracks in them that took a while to heal. Every time the fat Walrus broke the kid’s arm or the neck-Harpy - with rooster chin sack and all - ‘accidentally’ knocked the kid into a hot skillet, the magic had to amble its way over and promote healing and the wards themselves took a beating. The cracks were small, sure, but he could rip through them, but it meant what he could take with him was, fundamentally, _limited_.

Which was another problem, because _nothing was fucking easy when Lily goddamn Potter was around_. Memories are _complicated_ , no matter how much a senile tumbleweed using a pensieve tends to imply otherwise. Knowledge isn’t just _knowledge_ , it normally needs to be learned and then the memory of learning it is compartmentalized down until it's subconscious wind in the valleys of a person’s greymatter. If he just shoved his entire fucking Hogwarts' education into the boy’s head he’d probably kill him through fracturing his mind, or at least end up leaving Dumbledore with _another_ kid to ‘accidentally’ fuck up, not that he wasn’t doing a grand old job of that already.

So the best plan to get around that was to bring the memories in with him and then use the brief moment of possession to sandblast the context via occlumency before his presence was eradicated. In doing this, the kid wouldn’t retain the memories - though he’d probably know more than a few names he shouldn’t, however he could probably rearrange the boy’s mind to make it less instinctive ‘first name basis’ impulse knowledge and more ‘I somehow learned this at some point in the past’ - but he _would_ keep the knowledge, and in a way that wasn’t foreign to the mind itself, but rather something he could draw on normally and would be something he instinctively knew was there, making it feel natural and easily accessible. It might also fuck with his ability to forget things, but that was okay. Some form of eidetic memory isn’t a consequence, it’s a _benefit_.

Which meant he needed to figure out what he’d be giving the kid. Potions was absolutely a starter; Severus would have _kittens_ over a potions prodigy Potter, and honestly it fit with his last name. Fuck that guy, really, he was a solid two-thirds of the reason why he’d ended up stuck in an abused kid’s head and just— he’s _weird_ , and this is coming from a person born out of amortentia and inbreeding. Obsessions are obsessions, sure, but for fucks sake even he got over Myrtle after his seventh year and _he'd been the one to kill her!_ Like goddamn, get _over_ it you manchild. Kid probably would end up looking like his dad, but maybe he’d chuck the hopefully-a-healer a bone and employ some magic to make the traits of his mother develop more prominently over his fathers, magical talents included. It wasn’t difficult, but it was _horrendously_ illegal, but that just made it all the more appealing. He’d have time for it, probably. Just goes to show how far bitterness would take you, really, seeing as he was making the kid look more like his mudblood Merlin-damnable mother in hopes of fucking with a person the kid would probably never meet in person, so long as Severus kept to his goal of becoming a healer with mythically awful bedside manners. So, sure, put that down on the mental list, that works.

Charms? Eh, maybe a bit. Enough to make the kid stand out. Transfiguration is important, and it’d spite Dumbledore _and_ that harpy McGonagall, which was a bonus. Defense was all of the above, but maybe he could shove in some practical teaching skills? Social manipulation? He was basically preemptively grooming the kid into being either a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin, or at least he fucking hoped so, so why not. Maybe he’ll have the moral conscience not to create a death cult, but Tom sure as shit wasn’t in a position to throw stones about future bad decisions, what with the glass house he lived in right about now.

Seeing as boy-Potter wasn’t currently being waited on by nannies and allies of his house, maybe some etiquette? History too, maybe. Enough that he won't come out of this in the way that the goat wants, anyway. No outstanding knowledge of Hogwarts, but surface things about the wizarding world, certainly, enough that in the event that he gets, like, Filch or Hagrid or god _forbid_ Slughorn as his introduction he won’t get strong armed into anything. Make him into a right and proper heir, even when Dumbledore is trying to make him into a martyr or a weapon or another fix-it case of his own making. Yeah, that’ll show him, the bastard.

A few other things, odds-and-ends the boy’ll need to survive in an abusive household, maybe some knowledge on why he really shouldn’t tell the goat he knows all of this, er... Maybe some occlumency, too, lots of occlumency, actually. Boy-Potter can learn wandless household charms - which are a time-saver and absolutely great, Tom wouldn’t lie - on his own terms if it meant he could at least have mental defenses equal to the ones he’d built himself.

...

Huh.

That’s about it, isn’t it?

...

Shit.

Weird how things come together like that.

He had named his Dark Lord persona - though it’d become his actual personality, eventually - after fleeing death, but, really? Tom wasn’t quite sure he was too upset about his impending death. He was, oddly, satisfied. Ready, in a way that he wasn’t quite sure he liked all too much. All of his pins were in a row, plans could go fuck themselves, and his death, though terrifying in ways he wasn’t terribly comfortable with, was just ahead. Sure, he was one part of, er, seven? Six-and-a-half? Eight if you count the tethered wraith that remains after the body is gone? Parts of a psychopathic inbred moron with delusions of grandeur, but he felt weirdly independent now. Maybe it was a consequence of the whole botched Horcrux thing.

Maybe he could pass on? Like, he’d read all of about eight lines of a poem about the Horcrux, so he really wasn’t sure what happened to the constituent parts when they were destroyed, which he was almost certainly about to be. If he survived, he’d probably not exist as he did now, not in a way that let him be a bitter sad sack in a kid’s brain, in any event. Maybe he’d end up back with the wraith? Or, eugh, maybe he’d end up in the journal. Maybe he could fix that, if push came to shove, or maybe he’d move on, in a manner of speaking, into the veil, or hell, seeing as he sure as shit wasn’t going upstairs if it existed.

Well, if he did, hopefully he could skive off Lily Potter in whatever bullshit represented his afterlife. Hopefully it’d be Hogwarts, and not something ill-fitting like a train station or a pub, though he wouldn’t mind the other Tom’s pub. That Tom was nice, and his wife made a decent pie.

But then they’d have to die to be around, which was rather morbid.

...

Welp.

Here goes nothing.

⯀

Harry woke with a rather pained grunt, or had been awake? Even?

Blearily drawing his eyes down from the lit bulb above, over half-freckled skin - those were new, oddly enough - and across the dingy cot he’d come to enjoy as his bed, Harry paused. A weird sort of weight had been lifted from him, one that he wasn’t rather sure had been there before, but was gone nonetheless. Somehow.

He also knew his name. He also knew what a _name_ was.

What the fuck?

Wait, he knew what an expletive was too?

Why was his hair dark red instead of black? Why was his nose bleeding? Why was there sticky black stuff on his forehead? Why was his skin lighter and dotted with freckles?

Lots of questions that he had no answers for, right there.

Wiping the blood from his upper lip, Harry quietly decided it was probably best to just go back to sleep. He couldn’t see any light through the slats in his door, and the sounds of Uncle Vernon’s incessant snoring - or was it Dudley’s? They seemed to take rotations on being loud and obnoxious - more than likely meant it was probably still pretty late. At least he didn’t hurt now! ...Though what he was supposed to be hurting _from_ he couldn’t remember, which was just peachy. Anything from, well, the day before seemed to be missing, though he was pretty sure everything else was still there.

Rolling over to smother his face into the half-gnawed pillow that Marge’s horrible beagle had gotten to, Harry curled his legs up to his chest, promptly decided he was too old for this, and did his level best to get som—

Wait.

How old was he again?


	2. Snakes, Summer, and Drugging Your Relatives to Make Them Partake in a Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all, you should always listen to the arcane knowledge left in your head. Also listen to whatever a snake says, eat that perfect fruit which you've been told not to, and tell god to get bent. 
> 
> All of these are totally normal and absolutely not heretical. No sir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like 'She Observes', consider any additional chapters potentially the last chapter of any given story. I wrote this mostly because I was ill, bored, and sweating up a storm. 
> 
> Any followups to this will more than likely follow our little precocious gremlin of dubious morals.

Harry James Potter - age 9 - sometimes known as ‘boy’, ‘freak’, ‘you’, ‘soulless ginger’ and ‘a literal unwanted red headed step-child’, though not in any particular order, had something of a problem on his hands.

You see, England isn’t _really_ known for snakes. This, normally, is perfectly fine; the occasional adder or grass snake are a mite scary but are generally left well enough alone, blanked from the mind to avoid thinking about how they could be anywhere. As ignoring one’s problems until they hopefully go away is a long, time-honored British tradition, up until very recently Harry had done rather quite the same. He hadn’t seen any snakes in the garden or on the lawn, and had been quite happy to only know in his hindbrain that, yes, snakes are an unfortunate member of the local wildlife and, er, no, they’re not supposed to be able to talk to you.

In fact, Harry was _pretty_ sure there was something in the bible about this exact scenario.

“ _Speaker!_ ” Snakes spoke in a rather peculiar way. Harry knew, somehow, that they weren’t actually _speaking_ English, that the protracted hiss beneath those words was the actual language, and his mind - or his magic, can’t forget about that - was somehow shorthanding it into something he could understand. That, of course, doesn’t _quite_ work, as there are concepts and inflections and particular nuances of the language that he now knew he instinctively understood, but for the most part his mind largely parsed the language as English with a slight Edinburgh inflection, something that didn’t really help matters much.

“ _Speaker, you must listen! Listen! There’s this amazin_ —”

Harry quickly tuned the snake out as it started to ramble again. See, putting aside the fact that Snakes being capable of intelligent - well, more than an animal anyway - thought and have an entire language to themselves, and were therefore at _least_ equal to Dudley in terms of smarts, if not a bit more considering the cousin in question still had a bit of trouble with longer words and math, he just _really wanted them to shut up_. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like snakes - he’d found no particular dislike or like towards them - but for god's sake could they _talk talk talk_. It was endless, noisy, and generally all inconsequential.

Every day. Every damned day, he’d come out here in the blistering, sweltering heat to tend to Petunia’s godawful flower arrangements while a random snake came up and had an entirely one-sided conversation. The gardening, of course, was normal, if immensely unsatisfying, especially since he’d been able to remember every moment he was awake since the age of four, the night when he woke up and things had _changed_. He wasn’t exactly sure what, aside from the fact that, somewhere deep inside of him, he understood magic to be a fundamental reality, not to mention that he had a lot of offhand knowledge about plants, animals, etiquette, and history of a place he hadn’t known to exist. He also understood the small nuances of his own magic and had, before he realized this _was_ knowledge, and that this knowledge wasn’t at all normal and that he should avoid telling people about it, he had assumed it was his overactive imagination conjuring an entire world in his head to avoid reality.

For a time, he had been rather worried about whether or not he was insane, and after close to a year of stewing he’d ended up making a - rather poor - solution from plants he had names for that didn’t match up with the ones he was used to. The potion itself had been a simple sleep aid, making him drowsy but in a decidedly _exciting_ way, and from then on he’d had to accept that magic was real and somehow he knew about it.

Coming to this realization had also put other things into context. Mrs. Figg? Batty old lady that she was, she had a magical fireplace and magical cats, even if she didn’t seem particularly magical herself. The house he - unfortunately - lived in? Covered in a tarp of thick, protective magic that he could now not only _feel_ , but also see whenever he looked up towards the sky, a slight reddish tinge flitting in and out of place as the air wrinkled and distorted. There were other things too, things he imagined he probably _wasn’t_ allowed to see, or should know had been there, but in a way he’d become rather sensitive to magic in general, or at least the residue it left over.

“ _Are you even listening?_ ” The snake huffed - somehow - and swatted its tail - does a snake have a tail? Isn’t it all one tail? - against the dirt a few times for emphasis. Even now, in a sense, he could feel the magic, feel the way it slightly churned the space around it whenever the snake spoke, the way it hung in the air like the smell of ozone before falling back away.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Harry’s own ability to speak snake had come as a surprise, especially because of how his body was clearly not normal to accommodate the sounds necessary to speak it. “ _I’m a bit distracted_.”

“ _Well, you shouldn’t be! I’m here!_ ”

“ _Uhuh._ ”

“ _Anyway, there’s this amazing sunning spot—”_

Harry quickly tuned the snake out again, letting it chatter on while he tugged at the weeds near the flower box. Ever since he was four - when his hair began to change into a pale red color, when he’d become androgynous and knew he’d always be pretty instead of masculine, pale-skinned and freckled, when his mind had cleared, the fog lifting - he’d had a sense that he needed to _get out_. This, generally, wasn’t abnormal, there were more than a few urges he found weird, such as an aversion towards goats, old men, and an unhealthy fear when you mix the two, but they had faded with time, becoming less insistent as he grew further into his body. The only one that remained was the desperate, uncanny urge that he needed to leave, that he needed to fully escape his aunt and uncle.

He’d made a few attempts early on, back when it used to keep him up at night. It wasn’t difficult to get his magic to respond to his will, to the desperate _need_ that he’d had in those moments, to make it unlock doors and allow him silent passage, but every time he did he’d eventually stumble back to his house. After a while - and more than a few escape attempts in new and exciting ways - he’d started to get a feel for the barrier around the house, and the fact that whenever he left it leashed him. Though he could feel it, knew it was there, he still couldn’t resist it when he tried to get away and would, unfortunately, always finds himself back at the Dursleys. Then, one day, he’d been caught running away and Vernon’s ire had put a pretty conclusive stop to his attempts, though it was largely due to the fact that he’d come to realize he needed to get rid of that barrier first.

Harry knew things, knew things he probably shouldn’t know, and while he never remembered _learning_ any of them, the knowledge was still there and he still knew what he was best at. Potions - or at least that’s what he instinctively called them - were his first and foremost, followed shortly by plants in general, his understanding of people, etiquette, and then general magical knowledge and history. He knew, somehow, that he could get rid of the barrier, but that it’d need to _conclusively_ imparted. He also understood that, for all the magic there was, stuck in the veil around the house, that people would probably notice when it all came crashing down.

Another part of him also whispered that, the thing he’d have to do, it’d change how magic took to him. He had to give up something, to acknowledge something else as more important. Blood tied it all in, made the wards cling to Petunia and Dudley, if not Vernon. Made it so that the connection between himself and his aunt and cousin was what kept the barrier stable, kept it from just being a lot of magic that wanted to protect him, gave it shape and function that it might not have otherwise.

This, of course, brought him back to here. On his knees, plucking plants he’d secretly planted after taking some of the seeds from the little bit of forestry near the school, half-listening to a snake act pompous about a hot, flat stone he’d found a few streets over, waiting quietly for the front door to open and for Vernon’s meaty footsteps to thump down his driveway and to his overpriced car. There he was, trying not to smile as sweat clung to the short crop of red hair on his head, sliding down his forehead and over his lips, making the air taste a bit like salt.

Finally, as the car’s engine hitched, likely due to Vernon never bothering to take care of it, no doubt waiting for the day where he can foist the job onto Harry, and then came to life, hesitating only for a moment before pulling away and beginning its aggressive, somewhat reckless drive to work, Harry knew that today was the day. He had the plant leaves, he had Petunia and Dudley alone, he had the knowledge and the batch of solution in a water bottle which he’d put in his pants, easily hidden due to just how overlarge they were.

With a bang, the front door cracked open. Aunt Petunia’s horse-like face snapped out from behind the door, her face pinched into an unfriendly glare. “Boy. Inside. Duddy-kins needs lunch.”

Brushing off the soil and chucking what few weeds he hadn’t already placed into the compost bin, Harry nodded once and got up to follow. Aunt Petunia prattled on about how grateful he should be, that he should enjoy the humid summers, that he was too dirty and - with a smack to the side of his head- demanded he wipe off his shoes on the porch until she felt he wasn’t ‘tracking anything in’.

Five minutes later and another irate speech about how Dudley’s birthday was just a week away and that he had to make sure _every lasting thing was perfect, bluh bluh bluh I’m a monstrous person_ , Harry was finally allowed inside and out of the sweltering heat. Dudley had cranked the A/C up to maximum and was sitting right in front of it, though even with the small amount of air that could get past the mountain in question, the air was still considerably more comfortable than it had been when he was outside.

Aunt Petunia went to go and tend to Dudley and coax him into a seat, muttering harshly about how dangerous heat stroke was.

After another bout of angry reminders to be on his best behavior and that he was to make ‘good food and lemonade, or _else_ ’, Harry settled into the routine of cooking lunch. This was maybe the most _mixed_ part of his plan: the distraction. He couldn’t _at all_ risk Petunia catching him dosing the food or the pitcher with his potion, not if he wanted to remain alive by this time tomorrow, which meant he’d have to force something to happen. Causing ‘incidents’ wasn’t easy, and while it worked when he was younger and the emotions of ‘getting away’ had been so much more stronger, he still had to try, still had to hope.

While waiting on the toast to pop, Harry let his eyes shut. He focused on that twinge of need, of escape, dumped all of his willpower into it, let it drink him dry and forced it towards the door, demanding that it make a scene. Something in his chest _clenched_ , fist-tight, cutting off his air. It felt like, for a brief moment, his blood ran in reverse and that it had been drained entirely from him, his knees even buckling slightly, though not taking him to the floor.

The door, to its credit, was abruptly being banged on from the outside. Aunt Petunia startled, hissed out something that sounded suspiciously unfriendly, and made for the house’s entryway.

By the time she opened it, finding the driveway empty, the potion and the leaves had been dumped into the pitcher and completely concealed by lemon juice and water. Dudley was still glued to the television, only stirring when the toast popped and Harry began to put it all together, keeping his breath in the back of his throat. If anything fucked up, any little _bit_ of this plan, he’d be dead, or worse. Vernon was getting pretty good at making creative punishments when he started to learn how to blank through most of them, and while he had a decent enough grasp on the man’s personality and... ‘interests’, a very small, very terrified part of Harry knew it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for Vernon to try something considerably more dark to really punish him, so long as his wife and kid never knew.

Setting down the pitcher, two glasses and two plates with club sandwiches, Harry was shortly banished back into the kitchen until they were done.

Dudley, unsurprisingly, emptied his plate and two glasses - going on three - in a very short span of time. Harry had intentionally over concentrated the potion, knowing it would be diluted in water, and with some mental math they’d only need to drink half of it to hopefully get the effect out of it. Any more they drank would just mean it took longer to wear off, though he wasn’t sure if there was a point where it would result in an overdose or permanent damage. If it did, Harry wasn’t going to lose much sleep over it, however cruel that sentiment was.

Ten minutes later, with Aunt Petunia finishing off an entire cup and Dudley finishing off his third, Harry was met with glassy-eyed, slack-faced relatives.

The relief was, frankly, palpable.

Harry took the pitcher and the leftover lemonade, dumped it down the sink, and had to stop himself from instinctively rinsing the dishes off. Forcing his posture straight, his breath deep, and his focus forward, Harry walked out of the kitchen and stopped just beside them.

“Look at me.”

They did, the eerie sight of them doing it in sync more than a little unsettling. Harry swallowed back the urge to panic.

Rummaging through his pockets, Harry retrieved the piece of scrap paper, smoothed it out, and then slammed it down on the table. Neither of them flinched, instead staring glassy-eyed at him without hesitation. “You,”—he motioned towards Petunia, whose eyes took on a bit of a more focused appearance—“read this out verbally. You,”—he made the same gesture towards Dudley—”repeat what she said after she’s done speaking.”

Harry finally let himself take a step back and _watch_.

Magic was, in his own experience, _fickle_. It didn’t like being invoked without genuine intent behind it, but there were ways around such a thing. He knew, fundamentally, that the veil over his house, the thing that kept him here, somewhat obfuscated the things within even to magic itself, in large part because, as far as he could tell by comparison, the magic in the ward was absurd in its quantity. In most cases, drugging someone to be compliant to verbal commands and making them say _any_ of this wouldn’t work, but in these exact circumstances? He was pretty sure it would, at least once he _also_ added himself into it.

Dudley’s lengthy repetition of his mother’s blood oath finally came to an end, prompting the two of them to, again, turn to look at him in sync. He felt the weight of magic somehow, of how it lingered on him, curious, but not in a way that implied intelligence; waiting for his prompt, his affirmation. The air felt thick, the television sputtered out with a rather unfortunate hiss of static, and the sound of lightbulbs bursting echoed distantly from upstairs. He felt the oath cut into his throat, felt his next words like he felt the air against his skin and food against his tongue.

“I do not consider this family to be my family, I do not consider this house to be my home.”

The words, anticlimactic in both his tone and content, promptly caused the microwave, television and fridge to explode simultaneously as the bondage around the magic, around the veil, was peeled away with all the subtlety of a small explosion. He felt it, for a moment, reach down to him, brush against him, the magic feeling worried, almost concerned. It was fading quick, but it still clung to him, felt familiar, felt like a hug that he hadn't known he had experienced before now.

Then it was gone, and the world went quiet.

“If anyone comes here besides me, you both are to try and physically attack them.”

Harry turned heel and booked it, slamming his shoulder into the stairwell while rapidly unlocking his cupboard. He pulled it open, ignored the glass on his bed, and reached behind it to tug his schoolbag free. The only remaining strap went over his shoulder and head, resting against his nape, feeling a bit uncomfortable but considerably more tethered than it would be if he’d just slung it over one shoulder. Slipping into his shoes, Harry avoided using the front door and went through the back, ducking his head and pulling himself down at the sight of people approaching the house, some of them being faces he knew for a fact didn’t live on the road itself. Maybe they were visiting family?

Opting not to think too deeply about it - something he was pretty sure might one day come to be a problem - Harry slipped over a few of the side roads, down onto the main sidewalk, and made a straight line for the first bus stop he could find. He didn’t slow down, refused to let his pace linger even slightly, refused to look back and compromise his current advantage. So long as nobody even _wondered_ if he had anything to do with the racket back there, that he was just a kid looking to get home after visiting someone, he’d be _fine_.

“ _Speaker! You left me!_ ”

Shit.

Snake - did they have a name? Harry hadn’t checked - slid rapidly across the sidewalk, hissing and complaining about how it was too hot and that it was burny. There weren’t others around, but he doubted it would remain that way for too long. Swearing under his breath, Harry reached down, yanked the snake off the sidewalk and dumped the prideful lizard in question down the front of his shirt. Some thrashing, complaining, and rather evocative insults later, the petulant grass snake clung to him like a limpet, appeased by him promising to let them go if they felt the urge to leave.

People passed by, most faces being ones he didn’t know, but none of them even tried to glance at him. They did seem to be looking for someone - him, presumably - but, for whatever reason, couldn’t seem to find him. An especially rugged looking one with a crystal eye and a literal peg leg swore up a storm and only paid him a passing glance when he passed, drawing more than a few unhappy murmurs. The crowd waiting for the bus continued to grow, packing him in further, and though he hated confined spaces - no prizes for figuring out why, even he knew that - it did act as a way to hide himself, especially now that they couldn’t find him by his magic.

That was the other thing, the unfortunate other thing. As far as he could tell, the quality of his magic had changed – a balance that had once favored one aspect having gone to another. It felt different, felt more bendy and flexible, albeit with it always snapping back into its previous state, whereas his magic before had felt quite a bit like the opposite, being largely inflexible, stiff and direct, but easily put out of place if he wasn’t careful. It was hard to explain it, hard to explain _any_ of this, but the feeling felt that some part of his past existence was gone and in its absence there was a sense of _newness_ , of a foreign presence that felt not quite at-odds with the magic that was around locally, but at least felt like it was different from them, less old and permeating, more _fresh_. Somehow, the words he’d said had acknowledged one part of his magic, had given it importance over the other, and he couldn’t do anything to change that ever again.

Of course, this magic didn’t stop him from being jarred out of his thoughts as the bus arrived and he paid the pittance that was his toll, finding a spot near the back to sit down at. The bus shuddered and pulled away from the sidewalk, leaving the smattering of oddly-dressed folk in the distance as it drove on down the road.

Pushing the worry about the knowledge he had - and the knowledge he, for some reason _didn’t_ \- Harry let his mind wander to goals more in the immediate future. He hadn’t planned this out too specifically, knowing that having some wiggle room in plans was always for the best. Hinging everything on each step would mean the plan was more cohesive and probably more efficient, but it also ran the risk of falling apart if even one of the steps couldn’t be fulfilled. He knew the general direction he was going in, knew the general idea for what he was about to do - and more importantly, _how he was going to do it_ \- but he knew there were always alternatives, if push came to shove.

One way or the other, though, he’d cross the damn English channel, even if it meant he might have to rough it for a night in _Dover_ of all places.


	3. A Matronly Half-Giantess, Plausible Deniability, and Beauxbatons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry is forced to go shopping, deal with one (1) kid his age, gets a wand, and is coming to terms with the fact that Abel will never stop talking.
> 
> Ever.

“Huh. Would you look at that.”

“ _Speaker?_ ”

“Apparently I’m dead.”

Lord Abellium Romanicus Gaulica, an olive-colored grass snake with a whitish marking at the base of its neck that made it look like it had a mane, also known as Abel, swivelled his head to stare at Harry out from the opening in his shirt. Or at least it looked like he was staring, inasmuch as a species without eyelids can.

“ _You are still warm_ ,” Abel replied slowly, wiggling as if to make sure he was right. “ _Therefore you probably aren’t dead_.”

Harry propped the newspaper open and motioned at it, only to realize that Abel probably couldn’t read, and if he could, he probably wouldn’t be able to read French. Speaking of, Harry was actually rather curious as to why he could read and speak French without an accent, as well as Albanian, Russian, German, Latin, Irish, and enough spoken - not written, which was a shame - Chinese to really insult someone.

“It says here, er,” Harry paused to spare a glance around, just to make sure he wasn’t getting weird looks for speaking to a lump in his shirt. Didn’t want to be seen as a loony, you know? “On the 15th of June, 1990, Harry James Potter, known as”—Harry choked on his own voice for a second, _christ this is embarrassing to read_ —”’The-Boy-Who-Lived’, connected to the abrupt death of someone named ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’—”

“ _Is it all humans or just these Humans who are weird about names?_ ”

“I’m putting money on all Humans, really.”

“ _Continue_.”

“—has been officially reported as missing, and is presumed dead due to his vacancy from all lists that record him. Earlier that day, his magical guardian”— _seriously? Maybe Abel’s onto something about Humans and weird naming conventions_ —”Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Order of Merlin First Class, and Chief Warlock of the British Ministry’s Wizengamot.”

Harry took a moment to just breathe while Abel fidgeted restlessly beneath his shirt.

“His magical guardian, that man and all of his titles which I’m not going to repeat, reported that the wards surrounding Harry Potter’s house were rather abruptly torn down to the Aurors and some of his coworkers, who then leapt into action in hopes of finding and protecting their charge. Their attempt, obviously, came up empty, though there were no nearby reports of apparition, floo usage, or other forms of instant travel, so it is now assumed that Harry Potter is, in all likelihood, dead.”

“ _They didn’t look very hard._ ”

Harry scowled. “I’m pretty sure they looked relatively hard. We did make an exit quick enough that we’re not sure how long they lingered around that house, though I am surprised they’re not bothering to report the circumstances surrounding it.”

A brief read over of the page just returned an endless deluge of criticisms and some ‘juicy details’ which include that a Daily Prophet investigator apparently managed to haul Petunia off to the side and get answers out of her, though the exact information on that is currently being blocked by ‘outside forces’. Somehow, Harry had the means to both smile _and_ grimace at that thought, happy that Petunia had her privacy violated like that but somewhat put off that someone was blocking the information, not to even begin with the uneasy emotions he felt towards other people _knowing_ , even a little, about what he went through.

Folding the paper back up, Harry spared the area near his bench another glance. France was a rather nice place to be at this time of the year, though it had been a mite bit annoying to find entrance into the magical side of it without potentially risking himself. He’d only needed a day, though - finding where wizards and witches went was, frankly, rather easy if you just look for the people who don’t bother or try to blend in by wearing a poncho in the middle of a humid July - and it had put him here, in a place simply called _Whitebrick_ as far as he could tell. The name was about as evocative as it could get, as the entire figure-8 shaped area was fitted with a white brick road and towering white brick buildings. Stairs, overhangs and bridges made the entire thing into a multi-floor plaza without a roof, with a bulk majority of the more important and immediately necessary supplies being found on ground level but homes and more individual shopfronts being found the higher up you climbed.

Harry was actually rather fond of it. The entrance to the place was a bit skittish - wouldn’t someone behind a counter do? Like a bar or something - and it did involve walking off of what seemed to be a broken bridge, only to find out it wasn’t actually broken and instead just veiled everything from sight after a certain distance.

All-in-all? Even if people thought he was dead, and a not-insignificant amount of those people might be _celebrating_ his death, even quietly, Harry was pretty sure this had all worked out for him, and would continue to do so in the long run. Oh, sure, he’d need to abandon his name of Harry Potter and probably take up the last name Evans, would likely face discrimination for being orphaned and be rather poor, but at least he could probably find himself a school when he came about to be the requisite age and if that failed he could just move to another country until he found one which didn’t ask questions.

Deciding it was probably about time to go and find a place to sleep, Harry shifted around on the bench and immediately stopped once he noticed the extremely tall woman staring right at him. This wasn’t the sort of tall you got on some dads, where they went a bit above six foot, this was almost twice that and particularly daunting. She just _stared_ at him, like he was a fascinating creature and she was rather invested in finding out what he’d do when exposed to certain stimuli.

“Hello there,” the giant’s voice was, if nothing else, pleasant. It was also kinda muted, what with the height separation.

Harry gave his best slow nod. “Hello, may I help you?”

“Do you speak to snakes?”

Harry froze, Abel’s head popped out of the collar of his shirt at the word ‘snakes’ - because of course he would - and the giant simply continued to stare.

“Er.”

“Just say yes.”

“No?”

The stare didn't stop, Harry wilted.

“I will not hurt you, I am just somewhat curious.”

There was a rather strong, invisible urge with no actual source that told him to reject everything, to claim she was being weird and outlandish and that the snake in his shirt was just well trained or, even, not a snake at all. She didn’t seem malicious, but every single bell in his head that he used to survive his time both at the Dursleys' and - now - abroad was screaming otherwise. It was almost disconcerting how intense it was.

“Yes.”

The giant _smiled_ , and it was, to her credit, somewhat pretty. “I am Madame Maxime,” she said simply, as if that explained everything - it _didn’t_ \- and extended her hand.

Once again, Harry’s brain froze. What was he going to go by? Evans, sure, what about a middle name? Er, uh. Moon? Foot? No, no. Thomas? “I’m, uh,” _think before you speak, you moron!_ “Harper Evans.”

“Are you sure?” Her voice edged a little into teasing, though he managed to take it with good humor.

“Pretty sure, it’s the name my parents gave me.”

“I’m sure they chose well.”

Taking her hand - which completely swallowed his - ‘Harper’ let his shoulder be jerked up and down, though thankfully without too much force behind it.

“Now, why aren’t you in school?”

Oh, god _damn_ it.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Madame Maxime smiled rather placatingly. “You see, there was this rather fascinating thing. Children, either at ten years old or nine if they become ten in the summer, will be sent letters that will invite them to one of France’s many privileged schools, based both on a lottery system and a ledger that tracks lineages.”

“Er—”

“A bup-bup!” Madame Maxime interrupted, though her tone was still somewhat mischievous and relatively joyful. “Now, you are not _late_ for school, no, school begins on the twenty-first for the summer period. However, when a child is born with magical talent, it gets put on a list, and then a letter is sent. So it came as a rather big surprise that, all of a sudden, only a last name appeared on my list, completely out of nowhere.”

As if on cue, a letter with ‘Evans’ written proudly in front of it and a wax seal with a fancy ‘B’ on it fell right into Harry’s lap, an owl swooping back around to come to a rest on Madame Maxime’s shoulder. While Harry was still staring at the letter, the word ‘Evans’ slid to the side to allow for ‘Harper Thomas’ to appear in front of it. Glancing up, Madame Maxime beamed down at him.

“Usually by now, one of my staff will have taken you out - especially in your case, as you were entered via _lottery_ , and appear to be homeless if the letter has come straight to you instead of, say, a house - and gotten you prepared for the upcoming school year while introducing you to the basics of magical France. The summer period covers more of this in depth, of course, but I felt that it might be necessary to come on my own, what with my staff being indisposed and the, well, _unique_ nature of your inclusion.”

“Uhm—”

“Since you are already at _Whitebrick_ , however, I will not ask too many questions and, in return, you will promise to come with me so we can get your supplies. Do not fret, you are not in trouble for randomly appearing, it has happened before, though only to other schools, and your intentions are pure enough with no lasting loyalties to make the magic stick, so I will not mistrust you.”

“I’m sorry—”  
  
“None of that, now! Up you get, we will stop by _Duboix Fineries_ first, you are in need of suitable clothing and I bet you would look rather cute in the uniform!”

Harry didn’t get a chance to flee.

■

“Have a good night, Evans!” The door to the room shut with an easy _click_ , leaving him in exhausted silence.

It was no wonder the English went to war with the French so often, Harry realized, _they’re all fucking loony_. He’d spent all afternoon being dragged around, cooed over, and probed about his reason for recently appearing. He was told to speak to snakes, which he did, he was told to try on those silk-y blue things and _he did_ , he was run ragged and he even got a _wand_! From some hyper old lady who moved three or four times faster than she ought to. Maple, nine and three-quarters inches, ‘slightly flexible but with a good snap!’, dragon heartstring. It had felt warm in his hand, felt like accomplishment somehow, and that had been that.

Now he was in an inn that catered specifically to new arrivals to Beauxbatons, with enough rooms that it made him wonder just how many kids ended up at that place. He had his luggage, he had guaranteed breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

There was also the whole thing about his identity. Now, he wasn’t exactly the most knowledgeable person on how magic worked, but it seemed the _entire world_ was bloody keyed to him being Harper Evans. The letter, the plaque above the room - which had changed to his name when he stepped through the threshold - even the goddamn _Elves_ called him Harper Evans. It was weird to be having a crisis of Merlin-damned identity when he didn’t really have any problem with becoming a pale-red haired, androgynous looking person, only to then trip up at his _name_.

He hadn’t even been all that upset to drop Potter - he hadn’t touched a piece of clay in his entire life, to be fair - but _Harry_? He’d always been Harry! He reclaimed himself by _being_ Harry even when Petunia and Vernon had never told him his name! But, well, he couldn’t very well slip up on it, could he? Harry could always be short for Harper, sure, and it was a small blessing that such was the case, but it might do him good to refer to himself as Harper, or at least consider himself Harper first and Harry second.

He’d have to look up how magic identified people later, since he was starting to get a suspicion that he’d somehow named himself with magical intent or something similar.

Dragging Abel out of his place in his shirt - (“ _Hey, I was sleeping! Put me back!_ ”) - and placing him on the bed, Harry slid out of his clothes, piled them up, and then deposited Abel into the warm embrace of shitty castoff linens, among other things. Rummaging through his luggage, he retrieved what looked to be the sleepwear they’d made him try on repeatedly, sending one last nasally hiss at Abel about sleeping arrangements - (“ _This is discrimination! I deserve your body heat! Put me back!_ ”) - before sliding beneath the blankets, burying his eyes in the crook of his arm, and letting the exhaustion from the day flood over him, dragging him under.

■

June passed too quickly, defined by half-stilted conversation with other, far more comfortable people who were on their way to Beauxbatons and the occasional appearance of Madame Maxime, the Headmistress always bringing with her some far-flung, exotic snake, most of which were less than thrilled to be out of tropical climates with the rest all being generally unpleasant to speak with, for one reason or another.

Harry shut his eyes, soothed his headache back into the base of his skull, and continued to tune out Abel’s incessant _fucking_ chatter in his ear while he waited, along with about seventy other kids, for the go-ahead. They were all in a house about the size and shape of a school gymnasium, separated from their parents by a raised platform that extended out to cover half of the open area. Far above, a domed ceiling let in light through colored glass panes, framed by white marble pillars that curled and extended all the way down to the floor, thick with ivy and what Harry assumed to be magical plants.

Of course, Harry didn’t _have_ any parents, as some cunt named Gabriel had made really fucking clear. Orphan-Harper this, orphan-Harper that, fuck if only he didn’t have the patience of a snake he’d’ve buried that little snot by now. Even now, even while tuning out Abel’s chatter and the disquieted murmurings of the other Beauxbaton to-bes, he could _still_ hear Gabriel sneering and snarling about how he was an unloved child.

With a sudden _crack_ , eight people appeared. Chief among them was Madame Maxime, who towered over everyone else by several heads, but the rest were all striking in their own way. To the Headmistresses right was a bone-thin woman with hawkish features, a bald head, and milky-white eyes, to that woman’s right was a pair of identical twins with shoulder-length brown hair, bright blue eyes, chocolate skin and robes made out of what looked to be bark. Across from them - at Maxime’s left - was, respectively: a blonde and grey eyed woman that was lithe and tall, an old man with no hair, amber eyes, a somewhat round body, and a bushy moustache, a tall, far-too-beautiful redhead with pale skin, pearl-colored eyes, and a towering height, and finally a tired-looking, short, incredibly harry man with a thick staff clasped around meaty digits, silver eyes gleaming from beneath thick, bushy dark-brown eyebrows.

“Welcome!” Madam Maxime began, her face a bright smile. “You are to be inducted into Beauxbatons over the next two months, during which you will learn all you need to know as students. After that, you will begin schooling in truth, which starts on the first of September.”

The crowd, at this point, had gone whisper-quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see a fair few parents looked wistful and nostalgic.

“For July, we will be teaching you the basics, and then during August you will begin on some coursework alongside language and writing training.”

Again, there was silence. What Harry assumed to be the staff members began to spread out, taking place around a slight indent in the platform, their various wands - and one staff - raised in its directions. There was a palpable flush of magic, the air becoming hot and tight against the skin, almost scalding. The crowd - even Harry - staggered back a step as the marble pillars lit up with unseen runes, glowing gold and green with such intensity that it was almost blinding.

Then, without so much as a noise, it was done. Harry cracked his eyes open and found the indent was now open, revealing a staircase that, to his sudden bout of extreme vertigo, looked to be floating in the sky, surrounded by clear blue and white clouds. His head swam uncomfortably, and he even saw a few kids retch as they tried to look at it, tried to _understand_ it.

“Please close your eyes,” Maxime began again, and the command somehow stuck. Harry slipped his eyes shut instinctively, the nausea receded and his headache levelled back out into little else but a numb throb. “We will guide you forward with magic, so simply _listen_ to your instincts, okay?”

He felt it then, the slight tug. Harry let the sensation soak into him, slip into his skin and fill his veins to bursting, let it guide his feet into a comfortable rhythm along with every other child in the room, each footfall a thunderclap. Distantly, Harry imagined he could hear the sound of clapping and cheering, but it was, as mentioned, _distant_ , like an echo off of something else. The quality of the air changed after a time, doing so twice, becoming first colder and then returning to that summer warmth.

“You may open your eyes, now.”

He did. The sight was, well, _breathtaking_. He and the rest of his year-to-be stood on a platform carved into a mountainside, with a chateau far, far below, surrounded by green trees and rocky outcroppings. Further down the valley path was a small village, just barely visible behind the overgrowth, which seemed to be connected to the chateau - which was nestled into a raised part of the mountainside - by a snaking stone path. Letting his eyes drift off to the left, Harry spotted the bridge that he needed to cross to get to the building as well as the stairway down that would get him there to begin with.

At the far front of the crowd, that same bushy-browed, stoat man raised his staff and _yelled_. “First years! Come on then! We’re off to learn!”

Harry followed, an eagerness that was both not his and entirely his bubbling up in his chest, an obsessive, a _love_ , however twisted, for magic settling into his bones and marrow. Something close to a giggle left him, his laughter unlike it had been since he’d ended up at the Dursleys'.

Not even Gabriel could fault him for that, the little shit.


End file.
